Govt commits to meet revenue collection target

KATHMANDU: The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and Department of Customs (DoC) have made a commitment to collect Rs 890 billion revenue in the current fiscal year 2020-21.

The two departments which are responsible for collecting revenue, easing trade and creating an investment friendly environment in the country expressed their commitment to meet the set target despite the difficult circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a recently organized annual management seminar, both bodies expressed their commitment to raise revenue of around Rs 900 billion.

The government has set a target of collecting Rs 1.011 trillion revenue in the current fiscal year. Of this total, the DoC has been assigned to collect Rs 440.26 billion and the IRD will need to raise revenue of Rs 450 billion.

According to the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, 13.40 percent of the total target, that is revenue of Rs 135.61 billion, has been collected by Monday.

The IRD also plans to reduce the number of non-filer taxpayers in the large and medium taxpayer offices to one percent and other revenue offices and taxpayer service offices to 10 percent for this year.

It said that such non-profit taxpayers will also be reduced in income tax. It also announced plans to implement an electronic tax payment system, biometric registration system in all the offices and upgrade the tax payment system with information technology in the current fiscal year.

Similarly, the DoC plans to upgrade eight customs offices this year to strengthen the customs system. It has said that it will do its best to cover around 96 percent of the foreign trade.

As per DoC, it will provide the necessary physical infrastructure and resources and improve the customs’ head offices for the revenue collection. Stating that the number of customs agents is low compared to the amount of foreign trade that the country conducts, the department has also made a plan to add more customs agents this year.